The KAFA Product Took Six Days to Cross the 20,000 Admissions Point and Now Stands on 33,355 Admissions
Director
AHN Gooc-jin's sarcastic comedy drama
Alice In Earnestland passed the 30,000 admissions mark. The admissions record is a rare score for an R-rated indie product with a notably low budget.
Alice took eleventh place in the weekend box office chart, earning $49,435 from 6,895 admissions between Friday and Sunday. After two weekends on debut, Alice In Earnestland has so far made $227,942 from 33,355 admissions.
Another small-sized independent film
A Midsummer's Fantasia that opened on 11 June amassed 34,964 admissions after eleven weeks' theatrical run. It is expected that
Alice In Earnestland will break
A Midsummer's Fantasia’s record soon.
Alice In Earnestland is a comedy drama about a poor woman Soo-nam (played by
LEE Jung-hyun) who struggles to pay for her vegetative husband's care. Director AHN studied filmmaking at the
Korean Film Council (KOFIC)'s
Korean Academy of Film Arts (KAFA), which also handled the production of his feature debut
Alice In Earnestland.
Alice In Earnestland has drawn the public audience’s attention thanks to actress LEE Jung-hyun’s performance. Though better known as a K-pop icon, LEE originally debuted as a teenage actress in helmer
JANG Sun-woo’s movie
A Petal, in 1996. LEE’s performance in
Alice In Earnestland is known to be shockingly overwhelming. Director AHN has praised LEE's acting and mentioned that
Alice In Earnestland would not have become what it is if it were not for LEE's performance.
It is known that
Old Boy director
PARK Chan-wook helped AHN cast LEE for Soo-nam's role, which LEE's agency initially turned down. “I would always wish to watch and—or—make more of these films, but it isn't easy. While reading the script, I could not think of anyone else but LEE for the role. Who else would be able to express such twisted humors in
Alice In Earnestland?”
Before it went on cinema,
Alice In Earnestland has also received amicable reviews during its festival run: the
Jeonju International Film Festival presented it the Grand Prize in the Korean Competition, and afterwards the film went to the Shanghai International Film Festival’s Panorama section.
